Hope
by Sparx-007
Summary: Cassandra makes an important decision about her future.


Hope 

**Author**: Angela

**Summary**: Cassandra makes an important decision about her future.

**Rating**: PG

**Spoilers**: 114 'Singularity', 506 'Rite of Passage'

**Disclaimer**: I don't own anyone or anything that you recognise. I don't own Stargate or the characters. Very rich people do. Obviously, I'm not very rich. I'm not even rich. (Donations welcome J) I also don't own the lyrics of 'Hope' by David Campbell.

à à à à à 

"Come on, Cassie! Throw it!" A dark haired boy stood bouncing from one foot to another a few metres in front of her. She stared down at the beach ball in her hands. _We didn't have beach balls on Hanka,_ she thought. 

"Throw it!" the boy yelled impatiently, putting his hands on his hips and glaring at her. 

"Jake?" she asked uncertainly, realising that she knew him. He had been one of her best friends on her home planet. They'd known each other since they were babies. But he couldn't possibly be here. He had died along with the rest of her people. 

"What, Cassie? Just throw the ball," he said, sounding annoyed. "It's just a game." 

"It's just a game. Until someone gets hurt," Cassie whispered, echoing something her mother had told her when she had sprained her ankle during a game of baseball with Uncle Jack. Suddenly the ball morphed into Jake's pale, dead face. "Maybe it's a game for the Goa'uld. But not for the people they destroy." 

"Cassandra? Cassandra, wake up." 

Cassandra Fraiser's head jerked up as her English teacher's voice broke into her dream. Snickers filled the classroom. 

"Good timing, Cassandra. The lesson's over," Mrs Rilley said dryly. "Don't forget to read another chapter of your novel tonight." 

Cassie packed up her books and started to head out of the room. She turned back when her teacher called her name. 

"Cassandra, what is a Goa'uld?" she asked curiously, sitting down at her desk. 

Cassie hesitated. "A what?" she asked carefully, afraid that she had given something away. 

"You don't know?" Mrs Rilley asked. "You were muttering about it while you were asleep." 

"It's – it's probably something I made up. That happens sometimes," Cassie stammered, worried that her classmates might have overheard what she'd said as well. 

"Well, okay, but try and get more sleep tonight," Mrs Rilley suggested. "You've got exams coming up soon." 

"I know. I will," Cassie said, relieved that her answer seemed to satisfy her teacher. She would have hated to have to tell Uncle George that their teacher had learned of the existence of aliens from her talking in her sleep. Actually, she would hate to have to tell him that she had been sleeping in class. She quickly hurried out of the room before Mrs Rilley could ask any more questions. 

à à à à à 

"Bad day?" Doctor Janet Fraiser shone the penlight into Colonel Jack O'Neill's eyes and he tried not to look away. 

"Not really. Just got into your average shoot-em-up with the locals," he said sarcastically. "Apparently they didn't want visitors. So nice of them to let us know." 

"You're lucky none of you were hurt too badly," Janet told him. "Cassie's been missing all of you. She can't wait for this weekend." 

Jack looked confused for a moment. "Weekend?" he asked blankly. "Oh, yeah. We're going on that picnic, aren't we?" 

"She hasn't talked about anything else for a week," the petite redheaded doctor said. "Okay, I'm done." Jack jumped down off the bed. "She needs a break from school," Janet continued on. "She's been getting in trouble for sleeping in class. Something's worrying her but she won't talk to me about it." 

"Well, she's been through a lot and Dominic hasn't exactly been understanding," Jack said. "He didn't buy the story about her just fainting. He thinks she's a freak. Can you imagine how he would feel if he knew the whole truth? I bet Cassie can and she's worried that her friends won't like her if they learn that she's an alien. That's a lot for a kid to deal with." 

"I guess," Janet said. "I hope that's all it is. I'll try and talk to her tonight." 

"Let Carter know if it doesn't work out. She can have a chat to her on Saturday," Jack said. 

"Thanks, Colonel," Janet sighed as he walked out. Having a teenage daughter could be frustrating but she was lucky to have such fantastic people to help her out. Cassie was lucky to have people that she could be completely honest with, besides her mother. 

à à à à à 

"Sam!" 

Major Samantha Carter hugged the teenager who had run into her arms. "Hi, Cassie!" she said. Cassie then hugged the other members of SG-1 in turn. 

"Thanks for coming," Janet said to them. "Okay, let's go." She locked the front door and turned to the others. "Walking or driving?" 

"Driving," Jack said. 

"Walking," Sam and Daniel said together.

"I agree with Major Carter and Doctor Jackson," Teal'c said. "This transport does not seem very safe."

"That's because you've only ever seen Jack drive," Janet told him. "If you speed all the time, it's generally not safe."

"I do not speed!" Jack retorted.

Cassie grinned as she listened to her family argue. It was only on very rare occasions that they could all get together, and for all their arguing, everyone enjoyed it. It was a chance to get away from all the stress of saving the world and dealing with pig-headed bureaucrats.

"We're walking," she decided.

"That's it," Janet said. "You're outvoted, Colonel. Move out, people." Everyone headed down the drive. They were a strange sight. A group of six people walking down the street, engaging in good-natured banter all the way. It wasn't such an unusual sight in the park, however. It was crowded as it usually was on Saturdays. Many families were taking the opportunity to spend the day out together. Picnic blankets were spread out in every bit of shade that could be found.

Jack and Daniel managed to snag a space under a large, shady tree in a quiet spot. Janet spread the blanket and Cassie flopped down on it.

"What's for lunch?" she asked.

"Lunch?" Janet asked with a blank look. "What lunch?" Cassie went pale.

"Tell me you're joking. If you're not then I'm gonna hit you," Jack threatened. "I haven't had anything to eat all day." 

"Kidding," Janet grinned. "Sam's got it."

"She'd better have," Jack said with a dark look. "Or I'm gonna make the next week hell for her."

"Hell for who?" the blonde major asked, putting a large picnic basket on the blanket.

"If that's got food in it, no one," Jack answered.

"Is that what's in it?" Sam asked. "I never looked."

"It has food!" Janet groaned. "God, just eat already. Maybe we'll get some peace."

The team didn't need to be told twice. Everyone dug in. A half an hour later most of the food was gone and Jack was lying back on the grass with a blissful expression on his face. "Clouds," he sighed. "You've got no idea how good it is to look up at the sky and see clouds."

Cassie stared at him in interest. Her family was so different from others in that they noticed and appreciated things that a lot of other people would have thought to be trivial or strange. Being offworld so much, they learned to appreciate their own world much more. They knew how lucky they were to live on a world where they could breathe unpolluted air and look up into the sky and see fluffy, white clouds unobstructed by the hulking form of a Goa'uld mothership.

Sam decided that now would be a good time to talk to Cassie and looked pointedly at Janet, who took the hint immediately. Janet's effort to reach Cassie had been unsuccessful so she had asked Sam to try. She looked around for some sort of distraction and found it halfway across the park near the swings.

"Teal'c, have you ever had a hot dog before?" Janet asked. "Come on. We'll go get one."

"Can you bring one back for me, Mum?" Cassie asked.

"Sure," Janet said. "You coming, Daniel?"

"Mmm?" Daniel asked, looking up from his book.

"We're going to get some hot dogs," Janet said. "You coming?"

"Sure," Daniel said, catching Sam's warning look. He put the book down and slowly stood up, dusting grass off his pants. They headed across the park towards the hot dog stand. 

Sam looked over at Jack, who was asleep in the shade. He had his hat covering most of his face.

"Cass," she started. "Your mother tells me that you've been falling asleep in class."

"Yeah. Sometimes," Cassie shrugged. "It's just because I don't get enough sleep at home," she said defensively.

"Why not?" Sam asked.

Cassie looked down at the piece of grass that she was twirling in her fingers. "I've been having nightmares ever since the whole mindfire thing," she confessed.

"It probably brought back some bad memories, Cass, but you should talk to your mother about it," Sam said.

"That and the teachers have been bothering me about what I'm going to do after school finishes," Cassie said. "I'm not really sure what I want to do, but I think I want to join the military like you and Mum did."

"That's great, Cassie!" Sam said happily, "but this is a bit sudden. I thought you wanted to be an artist."

"I did, but then the nightmares started," Cassie said. "They made me think that maybe I'm making the wrong choice. What happened to me was bad, sure, but there are other people out there who are going through worse. I feel like I can't just sit back and let it happen. I'm one of the few people on Earth who know what's really going on out there and I owe it to all the other people who died on Hanka to try and fight it."

"What happened on Hanka wasn't your fault," Sam told her.

"I know, but I want to do this," Cassie said. "I don't want my people to have died for nothing."

"Okay," Sam said quietly, "but you really should talk to your mum about this. She might not be happy about you joining the military." 

à à à à à 

Cassie talked to her mother that night about joining the military. As expected, she wasn't happy about it. She was worried for her daughter's safety but she saw that Cassie was very serious about this. Considering Cassie's past, Janet thought that she probably should have seen it coming.

When Cassie went up to her room to start her homework, she was surprised to find a piece of paper on her desk. She picked it up to discover that it was Uncle Jack's handwriting. She couldn't make sense of what was written until she realised that it was the lyrics to a song. 

_Don't dream of giving up, don't dream of giving in, _

_Just try to keep your head, the answers are within you. _

_Don't think of losing heart it's tearing you apart, _

_Just gotta carry on, you know you can get through. _

_No use feeling sorry for yourself, cause you've got something else. _

_Hope, there's gotta be a little bit in you and me, _

_Hope, the only way we're gonna keep our sanity. _

_Hope, there's gotta be a little bit in you and me, _

_Whatever it takes, hold on, keep riding through the storm. _

Cassie grinned. Her uncle hadn't been asleep as she and Sam had thought. He must have heard their whole conversation. Cassie knew that she would need these words one day. And Jack knew that. It wasn't brains or brawn that got you through to the end of the day in a Goa'uld prison. It was hope and if you lost that, you lost everything. Thanks to Jack, Cassie would always have hope, even when she had nothing else. These words would give her light in the darkest of tunnels. 

The End 


End file.
